On Saturday, a self-proclaimed white supremacist, armed with a high-powered assault rifle, drove three hours to a grocery store in a predominantly African American neighborhood in Buffalo, NY and murdered ten people in a racially motivated act of terror. The white racist terrorist was taken into custody unharmed. Since I started writing this, there have been four more mass shootings. As a country, we’ve nearly become numb to this carnage while gun violence deaths continue to climb each year.
People complain about American children learning the truth about our country’s long history of racism. Meanwhile, racism continues to be perpetuated and normalized by a steady stream of propaganda such as “replacement theory” put forth by right-wing media and politicians. These mass shootings will be another battle cry for the far right to scream “ ‘they’ are trying to take away your guns” and every gun shop in America will have their shelves emptied by those who believe this tripe from Fox News. You watch– If Tucker Carlson says anything about it, it will be to say what the terrorist in Buffalo did was very, very bad. But he will also directly or indirectly defend many of the murderer’s evil themes as they are consistent with his own hate-filled rhetoric that he and too many right wing commentators encourage every single day.
As long as this racist propaganda is prevalent and left to flourish in a country with shockingly easy access to firearms, we will continue to see shootings like this again and again. We must do better. We must stand up to and call out the purveyors of fear and hate. And we must demand our political leaders do better and work together on gun reform. If they cannot, we must vote them out.
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